Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to rise today to talk about a very important bill, Bill C-26, and the security of people in Canada when they retire.
I have a few introductory comments. I echo the comments of my colleague from Vancouver East who arrived in the House as a brand new member of Parliament, looking forward to a new spirit of collaboration and co-operation. Our hopes were very high that things would be different. I therefore want to register my disappointment around the government's choice to move forward with time allocation. I share that disappointment with the colleagues on my side who, unlike me, will be unable to share their points of view and comments with our colleagues today.
As I said, I am honoured to be speaking to Bill C-26, which will amend the Canada Pension Plan Act and incorporate recent agreements the government has been able to reach with the provinces to enhance the Canada pension plan.
Although the effect of the changes will not be felt for many years, 49 years, this enhancement is a very important first step in improving retirement for young Canadians. I want to acknowledge and offer my congratulations to the many citizen groups, in particular, unions that have really been fighting long and hard and laid the important groundwork so we were able to get to an agreement on these enhancements.
When this is fully implemented many years from now, but still important, the CPP will replace 33% of pre-retirement income, which is up from its current 25%. The New Democrats have long worked hard for improvements to many aspects of our social safety net, including the Canada pension plan, fighting for better old age security, and increasing guaranteed income supplement benefits.
As I mentioned in some of my questions, retirement security for many Canadians has reached a new crisis level. It really has been increasing and made worse under some of the policies of the previous government, which really saw the crisis come to a head with many people being unable to look toward a retirement. A golden retirement, as people used to say, will not be there.
A large part of that problem is that six in 10 working Canadians no longer have a workplace pension. I will do what a lot of people do not do usually and reveal my age. I am 53 years old. My dad would have been one of the first groups of workers who worked for a very large multinational corporation and had a workplace pension. Closer to the end of his tenure in the corporation, during a large corporate takeover, he lost that defined benefit pension plan. My parents, along with many others, have had to look forward to retirement, but, as my colleague on the opposite side said in his previous comments, have had to take on a lot more risk when it comes to pensions, more risks than his parents had and many before him. Younger generations are looking forward to an even more precarious work environment and retirement, one that may not provide them with the things they need to have a safe and healthy retirement.
During the election, the Liberals promised to enhance CPP, and we are glad to see that has come forward. I have a couple of comments on this.
I want to acknowledge my colleague from Hamilton Mountain. As any good MP would, he did some digging and studying up on the bill so we could speak about it as it was coming forward. He found some flaws with it. I thought the government would be very eager to hear about this and do a quick fix. It is one of the reasons we want to continue to debate this, because we would like to hear a response from the government that it does plan to fix this. Just saying that going to committee somehow that will make everything better does not reassure me or people in my constituency, in particular, women and those living with disabilities, that their retirement is going to be as secure as they thought it was.
Of course, what I am talking about is that the proposed changes to enhance the Canada pension plan would actually not afford women and those with a disability the same increases. Although we know this was brought in under a previous prime minister, Pierre Elliot Trudeau, it was not included in this particular enhancement to the Canada pension plan. I know members on this side and my colleagues have been asking the government over and over, both in question period and in debate, to tell us if this was a mistake. We have asked if it is going to fix it, or if it was not a mistake, why it was not included.
Of course, if it was not a mistake then I question its claims about being sincere in addressing some of the inequities and issues, particularly when it comes to retirement for those two groups of people who would be most vulnerable. They are those living on some type of CPP disability and women who had to leave the workforce who were the primary caregivers of children and were therefore not contributing to the Canada pension plan. From what we can see, from what we know, and from the research from my colleague, these folks are not going to see the increase, as others would. It is one reason to continue debate.
I understand the government has just recently, within a month, done some great work and brought our provinces together and got agreement. However, sometimes in haste, things get overlooked. This is one aspect I hope the Liberals just overlooked, and I hope they are going to try to fix it, because it is extremely important to me.
When I was campaigning to be the member of Parliament for my riding of Saskatoon West, one of the key issues in my riding was income and affordability. For seniors, it was being able to afford housing, and if they were lucky enough to scrape together enough to afford housing, they were not able to afford medication.
Retirement income, particularly for women and those who have lived on a more limited income because of a disability, is extremely important to me. Therefore, I rise today to speak about this and to draw it to the government's attention again. It would be nice to hear, definitively, from the government that it does plan to not allow this inequity to move forward, that it does plan to fix it, and not just say that everything will be all right, that we will talk about it in committee, to just get going with this, and keep talking—or not keep talking, I guess—so that we can address this.
I feel honoured to stand up and speak about this issue. I want to congratulate my colleague for bringing forward these two key pieces of inequity in the legislation.